Railhead: Nova

So, Oxford chose several different illustrators to create designs for the characters in Railhead, and I was assigned Nova here. If I was in charge I probably would have given me Nova as well, and boy howdy was it an interesting assignment.

Nova is robotic, but shows no signs of it on the surface. She's supposed to appear fully human. However, she can't show signs of emotion. THAT BEING SAID, her goal is to be more human and unique (she's created freckles on her face to stand out), so it was asked that her expression imply that she will learn to show emotion in time. Got that? A robot who shows no sign of being a robot, and an emotional being who is unable to express emotion. Okie dokie! My idea was to have her clothing and hair be made of hard angles and bright colors, to at least imply she's not very natural.